How Much is that HSBC in the Window?
At an HSBC bank, trapped inside glass cages, performing for strangers, are a beauty queen, an artist, and three guys watching football. Passersby text their thoughts to ticker screens behind the subjects heads. Like most things that make no fucking sense, it’s part of a multi-million-dollar ad campaign.
It’s the latest extension of the strange “What’s Your Point of View?” initiative by the British banking group, nominally seeking to make a global giant more personal by cultivating consumer opinions about a range of topics, from gorillas to vegetarianism to cloning.
Visitors to the website yourpointofview.com can also add their one-word opinions about the shows. The system however, rejected “retarded” and “ugly.” Opinions are only accepted if they fall within a narrowly prescribed dictionary set– perhaps the most apt metaphor elucidated by the HSBC effort.
The current location is the branch at 39th St. and Fifth Ave. in New York. Next week the stages move to 5 Penn Plaza, Third Ave. and E. 86th St., and Broadway and E. 9th St.
And somewhere, a virgin loses her wings. What’s your point of view? Tell us in the comments.
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